By Taylor Spooner, Reporter

The cheer team is becoming more athletic under a new coach this year.

Coach Melissa Maloney is in her first year of coaching at Kaneland, but she was a cheerleader for her high school team.

“Most people don’t consider cheerleading a sport, and they don’t think it takes hard work. Our girls have conditioning, private coaches, running plans in the summer and abs workouts daily.” Maloney said.

Junior Samantha Markelz said that the coaches have high standards for the team.

“We’ve had really good coaches. They keep us working hard,” Markelz said.

The squad is currently training for competition season and working on their choreography and routines, which Markelz said are designed by the team captains and sometimes by a choreographer.

Team captains are seniors Courtney Reiss, Kristen Glover, Brianna Brehm, and juniors Laken Delahanty and Abby West. There are 16 cheerleaders on varsity and nine cheerleaders on the junior varsity squad.

“A lot of girls got moved up this year because they need them for competition,” freshman Jade Lara said.

The team is cohesive this year, Moloney said.  “With a lot of different personalities, there is always going to be conflict, but they work it out really well,” she said.